Tag Archives: belle absente

I’m late, today. My apologies to any out there waiting for the prompt. Should I be later than is good for you in the next five days [and you have not discovered this yet], head to the FPR, scroll down and you will see the latest link to the latest prompt.

For other examples of responses to today’s prompt, head over to the FPR.

One way or another we have done this exercise, so it shouldn’t stress you, other than the actual doing of it [:-D]. The name I ended up picking is Ory. The reason for my lateness is that my husband’s beloved uncle died last night and I had to get Skip on the road to Baton Rouge and me provisioned for several days. Ory was 95 and the entire family were with him last week for his birthday. I think Ory was waiting for that. A special gentleman he was.

The prompt:

Belle Absente or, Beautiful Outlaw. ‘The outlaw in question is the name of the person (or subject) to whom the poem is addressed. Each line of the poem includes all the letters of the alphabet except for the letter appearing in the dedicated name at the position corresponding to that of the line: when writing a poem to Eva, the first line will contain all letters except E, the second all letters except V, and the third all letters except A.

Choose someone mentioned in your newspaper to whom to address your poem. Compose a beautiful outlaw poem following the procedure outlined above and using words sourced from your newspaper text.’ I chose, instead, the name of my husband’s uncle, Ory.

The poem — two forms [I liked both, couldn’t decide]:

To Ory: As Your Soul Takes Flight

Fly. Carve gentle, ever larger, ever farther, arcs in the air. Pull. The kite has small wings — in a breeze, a quiet air, sails like a hang glider. Take flight. Experience.

Laze. Take flight in the faintest wind. The quiet box pulling off swoops loops and dives needs no assembly. Dance.

Tumble. Bounce back into the air, no parts to break. The star flake when it hits the ground, rises, not even a breeze required, takes flight, dancing impossible to resist. Ascend.

***************

To Ory: As Your Soul Takes Flight

Fly. Carve gentle, ever larger, ever farther,
arcs in the air. Pull. The kite has small wings —
in a breeze, a quiet air, sails like a hang glider.
Take flight. Experience.

Laze. Take flight in the faintest wind. The quiet
box pulling off swoops loops and dives
needs no assembly. Dance.

Tumble. Bounce back into the air, no parts to break.
The star flake when it hits the ground, rises, not even
a breeze required, takes flight, dancing
impossible to resist. Ascend.

The article was one on kites and kite-flying. I picked the phrases I thought matched Ory and was amazed how easily the ‘use every letter’ part was. The only letters I could not find and did not want to force, were the letter ‘j’ in each stanza and the letter ‘x’ on the final.